Tuning in

4.11 - 1251 ratings - Source

Television has been called the qboob tube, q qgoof box, q and even a qvast wastelandq of American culture. Yet, for all its banality, television is in many ways a mirror of culture, and communicates messages within culture through the multiple channels of visual images, language, sound, and music. All of these channels contain their own unique coded messages to create the larger meaningful text of television. As one of these sensory channels, music contributes to meaning in television through its artistic language and through television viewers' association of music with certain aspects of culture. Music has always been an integral part of the American television, even from its earliest days. Like its parent medium of radio, television broadcasts music to entertain viewers with live and video taped performances, but music has also come to play a much larger role in television beyond its pleasurable performance aspects. Music is used in narrative programs to evoke moods and identify characters and setting, it is used to sell products through commercial jingles, and most importantly, music generally aids broadcast television in navigating through the continuous qflowq of daily programming. This navigational aspect of television music is a distinctive feature, and functions to transport the viewer through three qspacesq of TV: the flow of the televisual apparatus, with commercials, newbreaks, and promos; the storyworld of each narrative program, and the representational space between narrative and flow. As Heard on TV is an examination and analysis of music in American television during the first fifty years of its history. The book focuses on how music has functioned to serve as a navigator through the flow of television and contributing to structure narrative programs, while also conveying meaning to its viewers by correlating with the images and sounds that it accompanies. Drawing from precedents of the cinema and radio, the book examines music in a number of qclassicq television genres by positing a theory of qfunctional musical spacesq adapted from theories of Charles Morris, Umberto Eco, John Fiske, and others.... tapping into a diversity of styles ranging from soap operaasounding ballads of
the theme to progressive bebop, jazz, ... cadences, almost as if the cues were
looped to be repeated endlessly, similar to Snowa#39;s music to The X-Files. ...
Opening ofTheme to Twin Peaks (Music by Angelo Badalamenti). electric piano
melody inanbsp;...

Title

:

Tuning in

Author

:

Ronald Wayne Rodman

Publisher

:

Oxford University Press on Demand - 2010

ISBN-13

:

You must register with us as either a Registered User before you can Download this Book. You'll be greeted by a simple sign-up page.

Once you have finished the sign-up process, you will be redirected to your download Book page.